What is your response to President George Bush’s speech at the Republican National Convention? How do you think he will impact the campaign?

“It was very interesting. It was very clear he couldn’t hear what was going on in St. Paul because he was stepping on applause marks. It seems to me with his little humorous comments, he is trying to set up the fact that he and McCain have differed. I think he will help [McCain] as needed and I think McCain knows there needs to be some distance between his polices and the Bush polices. I think his presence in Washington shows he really was trying to show concern to the hurricane victims.”

– Ferald Bryan, associate professor of communications

“I thought it was a nice intro to John McCain. He reminded us of McCain’s service and sacrifices in the Vietnam War and stressed the importance of leadership when you have a dangerous world. I was impressed by the briefness of the speech. I think they gave Laura Bush as much or more time. I think it really was advantageous to have the excuse of hurricane Gustav to avoid having Bush actually make a major speech at the convention. That makes it more difficult to tie McCain to George Bush. I expect him to minimize his role in the election. His approval ratings have been below 30 percent and they don’t get much lower than that. McCain would like to present the image of being independent of this administration. He wants to paint himself as an independent of normal Republican party politics.”

– Mikel Wyckoff, associate professor of political science